Professor Good Ales

Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

Written by Ken Carman

Topic: My Summer Brew Ventures

Since the late 90s I have been interviewing brewers, reviewing brew-based businesses and generally making a nuisance of myself all over the east coast at pubs and such. I’m especially good at the “nuisance” part; being winner of the 2002 Most Annoying Beer Geek Who Haunts My Brewery Award.

I’m kidding, of course.

Sort of.

Maybe.

Many of these reviews are lost. I could blame my various editors: I’ve had a litany of poor ones, really bad ones and a few good ones. But, to be honest, I could have gone out of my way to save the damn things myself, so in that regard I blame, well let’s see… me! And, as a caveat to that admission, I also didn’t have the ability to post pictures like I do now. So every year I will endeavor to take pictures of brew related businesses, at least those who are still in business, featured in past reviews in at least one edition of Brew Biz.

I will start out with one of the main attractions in this edition, David Wollner’s Willimantic Brewing.

Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

Tim Dohms, right, of Hopjacks Pizza Kitchen & Taproom poses with the crew behind his personal “Best of Show” at the 2010 Emerald Coast Beer Festival, L.A. Lagers from Mobile. (Phil Bailey/GoPensacola.com)

Written by Tim Dohms for PNJ.com

Time to show my respect and admiration for the only people around more enthusiastic about beer than I am: the brewers. We’re fortunate to have at least ten local and regional brewclubs who do great justice to the classics and experiment with what could and should be the next big thing.
Continue reading “BEER GARDEN: A look back at Emerald Coast Beer Festival”

Profiled by Ken Carman

What a great name!

What an erratic beer!

Brewed by Ellicottville Brewing at Ellicottville Brewing in… hope your pacemaker is ready for a shock… Ellicottville, NY and, marginally, at Fredonia. The latter; formerly Barker Brewing, is mostly just a store front for the Ellicottville facility. I have been to all three and even as mostly just a front for Ellicottville, the Fredonia location is better: has better beer and food than Barker did..

Pantius is, unfortunately, not one of them: despite the great name. That’s a long haul conclusion: comparing an aged sample, what I tasted of this year’s Pantius. I had it for the first time last year and it was excellent… at first. Nice Cascade hop punch. 11.5%. Enough body to support this deep copper-ish wonder: I bought a bottle. On the way back though New York this year from Ohio I eagerly stopped to buy more. They changed the hopping, it seems. Not pleasant: kind of grassy in a “I really don’t want to eat off the bottom of a clogged lawnmower, please.” Then at Big Bob’s Barleywine Bash last weekend I opened the 09 bottle. The pleasant hop punch had turned slightly sour citrus. Also a bit unpleasant; though not as bad as the fresh sample this year.

At 11.5%, that just ain’t right. The high alc should have kept the beer “pleasant,” and the hops just fade a bit.

I have had plenty of Ellicottville beer going back to sometime in the 90s. They can do better than this: and they do. The name alone is worth keeping. Work on it folks.

Written by Simon Crisp for asylum.com

Ever thought that drinking beer, in and of itself, is pretty pointless?

Well, Tuned Pale Ale has come out with a beer that gives you a chance to do something constructive while boozing: whistle a tune. It’s carefully calibrated so you know just what note you’re going to hear when you blow over the top.

It’s a gimmick, sure, but it’s a good one — and it also comes in a wooden case that you can play like the drums. And if there’s one thing we know about being a little bit drunk, it’s that the idea of hitting drum-like things with sticks is very, very exciting.
Continue reading “Finally, Musical Beer — Meet the Pale Ale That You Can Play a Tune On”

Picture of War Horse silo before the name of the brewery changed.

Profiles by Ken Carman

Expect a more current picture and further information about this hard to find brewery in an upcoming Brew Biz column.

Riesling Ale
War Horse India Pale Ale
War Horse Black Lager

I had these beers at the brewery and bought them for the second, Labor Day weekend, beer tasting I do every year at Beaver River Station.

I’ll start with the only disappointment: the Riesling. After being impressed with the other two, I found the Riesling too mild with only slight hints of the Riesling juice Custom Crafters puts in this as they brew it for War Horse. Slight. I have been rarely been impressed with anything CC does, and the other two are so much better. That fruit sense could just as well be the fruity nature of the ale itself. Should be better. But that caveat aside it is a light ale; sans hop sense. The fruity nature replaces the hops sense quite well. Somewhere between pale to mid-copper-ish. If I had some now I’d do a better job but my tasters greedily devoured all three. All three were well loved.

The IPA? Perfect. The BJCP needs to consider this as a classic of an American version of the style.
Continue reading “Beer Profiles: War Horse”

One American beer that no serious bar in the capital appears able to do without is Brooklyn Lager.

Written by Will Hawkes for blogs.independent.co.uk

British beer is enjoying a remarkable renaissance. There are now 767 breweries in the UK, more than at any time since the Second World War. According to Camra, 78 new breweries have opened in the past 12 months (and although a fair few have closed, too, there are still 56 more now than this time last year). Last month’s Great British Beer Festival was bursting at the seams with interesting ales and happy drinkers. Beer lovers in this country have never had it so good.

Maybe, maybe not. The growing popularity of American beers in the UK suggests that things are not quite so rosy. The innovative, hop-heavy character of Yank beers is clearly filling a gap in the market, a gap that British brewers have failed to fill.

Continue reading “British beer: Booming or Boring?”

Written by Bob McClay for KTAR.com

PHOENIX — A study by AEI-Brookings Joint Center shows 1 in 10 drivers on the freeway are talking on their cell phones and actually are more impaired than if they had been on a drinking binge.

The study used a driving simulator to test the effects of cell phone use vs. the effects of driving while intoxicated.

When taking into account driving conditions and other factors, drivers on cell phones were more impaired than those who had been drinking. Using a hands-free device did not make a difference.
Continue reading “Cell Phones More Dangerous Than Beer Behind the Wheel?”

Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.

Written by Ken Carman

Scanning the web, I was glad to see that Shipyard seems to be still brewing Chamberlain. It’s been many years but I remember it being a pale ale with a nice hop undercurrent and balanced a bit more towards the malt: for an American version of the style. Nice copper tone, plenty of rocky head and a nose of malt and hops spells out taste before a single sip. Clarity is nice and I’m guessing there’s enough cara-malt in here to provide a bit “chew” to the texture.

The sites I’ve scanned as I wrote this seem to find more of a hop focus. Though I admit I am doing this from memory, after that caveat I still think I would disagree. But I have been more heavy hop focused than some for quite a while. After falling in love with IBUs well over 100 at a brewpub south of Cinci in the early 90s, and then enjoying my taste buds being whacked by The Hop Tyrant’s beer in my Nashville hombrew club, maybe it just takes more to impress me enough to suggest a beer is “hop focused.”

I haven’t seen it in the stores… of course Yankee Spirits is my main New England source, but that may change by next year. Stay tuned.

If the picture remains on site, the bottle below isn’t as nice as mine. I have a green labeled 22oz brown bottle, also pictured below. Named after a famous Civil War hero: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who famously defended Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

Written by Jay Brooks for realbeer.com

NPR’s Science Friday had a show last week devoted to The Science of Smell. If you’ve ever taken tasting beer seriously, you know how important smell is to the flavor of beer (and everything else). Host Ira Flatow discussed Olfaction with research scientists Stuart Firestein and Donald Wilson. The show’s only a little under 18 minutes but is pretty interesting.

Continue reading “The Science of Smell”

Posted by Beersage @ beernews.org

Each year, Boston Beer Co. holds the Samuel Adams Longshot Competition in which homebrewers compete with various recipes to see whose will appear in a mixed six-pack to be released the following spring. The finalists were apparently announced a while ago but I just discovered them so here they are:

Continue reading “Samuel Adams Names 2010 Longshot Finalists”